Speculative Fiction book reviews by Spike Gelato

A compact folktale about a mysterious man living deep in a magical forest. Author Emily Tesh immediately immerses you in her vivid world full of fae and foliage. The story, the writing, and the characters are all solid and I mostly enjoyed my time spent in Greenhollow Wood…although I’m not sure I’d want to return there for future adventures.

I spent the first few months of 2019 reading Guy Gavriel Kay’s early works (for the first time) as a primer to this book’s release. I polished off his first six novels and thought I was ready to dive in here until I saw the world map that features “Sarantium” quite prominently – I closed the booked and jumped back and read Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic as final preparation. I’m glad I did, because that duology enhanced my understanding of this world and there are several callbacks within Brightness to the events in those books. Here, Kay is exploring the ripples of time, how small actions have an impact on the world at large and how our memory of the past shapes our understanding of our future.

Much like Kay’s previous work, A Brightness Long Ago is beautifully composed, emotionally engaging, and it features compelling characters with depth. I really loved being introduced to minor, seemingly inconsequential characters who, once they had played their part in this specific narrative, have the remainder of their lives described to us and how consequential they end up being in their own right.

As much as I enjoy Kay’s writing, I hit a wall about midway through here and really limped my way to the end over several weeks. Whether a result of my own disjointed pacing or the book’s, I was never quite hooked. That kept it from full 4-star territory, but I will gladly continue on with GGK’s oeuvre.

★★★¾ out of 5

“We see only glimpses of history, even our own. It is not entirely ours – in memory, in writing it down, in hearing or in reading it. We can reclaim only part of the past. Sometimes it is enough…”

A fertility epidemic (slowly) wiped out 99.9999% of the world’s population. The remaining survivors are scattered around the globe. Griz lives on a small, Scottish island with several family members and two dogs. When one of the dogs is stolen by a mysterious visitor, Griz sets off across the sea and barren landscape to bring the dog back home.

C.A. Fletcher paints a vivid picture of an abandoned, post-apocalyptic world, but this is a tough book to rate. I did not find Griz’s story to be compelling…at all…until the final 10% of the book. It was a quick read and that excellent last section made the uninteresting journey somewhat worthwhile. I did appreciate that Fletcher’s choice of narration style is part of the story and even pays off in the final pages.

If you like this book, there are a few genre-similar books that I also enjoyed: The Wolf Road (review), The Fireman (review), The Dog Stars, and Station Eleven.

★★★ out of 5

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Coming off the great Sailing to Sarantium, I was let down by part two of this duology. This book expands on several story threads and introduces new characters that I struggled to invest in. I would have been perfectly satisfied with a book solely focused on Crispin and the construction of his grand mosaic. Kay pushes the story well beyond the reaches of Crispin’s plight and, in doing so, created a story that feels uneven, unwieldy, and mostly uninteresting to me. It is still beautifully written and ambitious, so I certainly do not regret finishing it, but it falls towards the bottom of what I’ve read from GGK so far.

Thanks to the mysterious and interest-piquing marketing campaign for Amazon’s upcoming LOTR series, I’m embarking on a reread of the original “trilogy” for the first time in almost 20 years. This time, I’m equipped with this great readalong to guide and enhance the experience.

I enjoyed this installment immensely and it felt like I was reading it for the first time. For so long my understanding of LOTR was based on Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, which is brilliant in its own right, but Tolkien’s text is rich, detailed, and filled with so much fascinating lore. In fact, rereading the first book has enhanced my understanding of the film while the film has provided great visual references to characters and settings that appear in the book. I love story beginnings and The Fellowship of the Ring is one of the best of all time.

This first installment of the Sarantine Mosaic is wondrous, wonderful, and features some of the most beautiful passages that I’ve read yet from Guy Gavriel Kay.

The spirituality of the world and the exquisite mosaics that Kay describes are sights to behold. I’m fully invested in Crispin, his mosaic masterwork, the political web he’s fallen into, and the underlying mystical “half-world” that is nipping at his heels. The pacing of the overall story is uneven, but this is a great first half of a larger mosaic.

25 questions. Pass, you’re granted citizenship. Fail, you get a one-way ticket out of town.

Sylvain Neuvel follows up his excellent Themis Files series with this twisted, fast-paced, and thought-provoking dystopian novella. Much like Themis Files, Neuvel employs an unconventional storytelling structure to engage the reader and make the best use of his sharp, sense-of-urgency writing style. There’s an added element of reader participation here, as you’re left to wonder how you would respond to the events of “the test” as the questions suddenly go off the rails. It’s a tight page-turner that really works.

A ghoul named Rat, a man degenerating into stone, and an orphan thief with a mysterious gift work together to uncover a dark conspiracy in an ancient city filled with tunnels, monsters, and dangerous gods.

Author Gareth Hanrahan has built an undeniably cool world that crackles with dark energy. The monsters that patrol and infest the city of Guerdon are human enough to be comprehensible, but grotesque enough to be creepy and unnerving. The architecture of the city itself is imaginative and fun to explore, with layers upon layers built atop the haunted past they’ve tried to bury.

I had a difficult time connecting with Hanrahan’s writing style, which felt a bit stiff and difficult to lose myself in. The book never sucked me in the way I wanted it to, but the concept and tone were enticing enough to keep me going. I’ll be intrigued to see where the sequel goes after The Gutter Prayer’s game-changing final act.

In this third installment of The Books of Babel series, author Josiah Bancroft shakes up the narrative structure yet again and we’re presented with three distinct, non-concurrent storylines that all take place over the same period of time. This doesn’t push the overall story forward very far, but it provides us with sustained and worthwhile time with several wonderful characters.

Bancroft could write a kitchen appliance manual and I’d happily read it. The fact that he’s built such a wondrous world and a story that makes such perfect use of his unique voice and style makes it all the better. The witticisms, turns of phrase, vivid images, fully drawn characters, and the magnificent setting all coalesce into something truly remarkable.

In my review of Arm of the Sphinx, I concluded that this series “has the makings of a modern fantasy classic.” Well, makings have been made. This series is a modern fantasy classic.